


Blackmail

by khilari



Series: Blackmail [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years before canon the circus doesn't come through Passholdt, so when Tarvek reaches the end of his ability to treat Anevka he decides to force Gil to help. Gil is rather bemused to find himself being blackmailed over being Teufel's son but goes along with it out of a mixture of curiosity and sympathy, unaware of what else is going on at Sturmhalten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blackmail

Gil had been working on a paper for class — which would have shocked any number of his friends, but surprisingly enough he did study — when a messenger arrived with a sealed capsule containing a letter that was, on closer inspection, encrypted. The impressive level of paranoia had Gil suspecting a missive from his father, up until he actually translated the encryption and found:

_Gil Holzfäller,_

_Come to Sturmhalten or I will reveal who your father is._

_Tarvek Sturmvoraus_

Gil’s first reaction was annoyance, both that Tarvek was, again, getting in the way when he had things to do and that his father had, _again_ , been right about something and Tarvek’s suspicions about Gil’s past were coming back to haunt him after all. He could deal with this by telling his father…who would deal with it by having Tarvek killed…

Gil frowned. He didn’t doubt that Tarvek would stoop to blackmail, in his opinion Tarvek would stoop to any number of things, but blackmailing someone powerful and ruthless enough to kill you was stupid, as a lot of blackmailers had found out over very short careers. And, whatever else you could say about him, Tarvek wasn’t stupid. Which meant he was in enough trouble to be gambling, and gambling badly. Gil rubbed a hand through his hair. There were things here that needed keeping an eye on. The game with Ardsley Wooster. Zola — maybe he could ask Ardsley to keep an eye on her, show he trusted him? Two birds with one stone, and the thought of Ardsley dealing with Zola was a rather amusing one. Bang would _love_ to come to Sturmhalten, but was unlikely to help the situation by doing so, maybe he could just give her the slip? The thought of her running loose in Paris was a bit worrying, but she’d probably go home to report she’d lost him.

…Why was he thinking of going to Sturmhalten anyway? Curiosity, he decided. If Tarvek was up to something, something more than he was usually up to, then Gil wanted to know what. And he should find out how much Tarvek knew and what proof he actually had.

That settled, Gil stood up and opened the lamp to hold the letter in the candle flame. He’d better make a move quickly if he wanted to escape Bang, but first he had to stop by Ardsley’s house.

* * *

Sturmhalten was a prosperous trader town, with a market that Gil would have liked to explore even though he suspected it didn’t have anywhere near as many curiosities as he could find in Paris. As it was he had other business and presented his papers to the guard before mentioning nochalantly he had an invitation to the palace. This got him a haughtily raised eyebrow.

‘No, really,’ Gil said. ‘I know Tarvek from Paris. Just ask him.’

It wasn’t long before Gil was waved through by a slightly shaken guard and given a lower ranked soldier as escort to the palace. Tarvek was waiting for him on the steps, looking significantly scruffier than Gil had seen him since they were both children. He had a beard, although he didn’t look like he’d meant to have a beard so much as not had time to shave in weeks and there were circles around his eyes.

‘What have you got yourself into?’ Gil asked, standing deliberately at ease on the steps.

Tarvek looked down his nose at him. ‘Come and see. Thank you, sergeant, that will be all,’ he added, absently, and the soldier saluted and left.

There were a lot of servants inside the palace, turning and watching them as they walked through the corridors. Far more than Gil ever remembered there being on Castle Wulfenbach, and far…twitchier. Quick to glide deferentially out of Tarvek’s way, or to murmur pre-emptive excuses that they didn’t seem terribly sure about the need for. ‘Your servants are scared of you,’ he observed to Tarvek.

‘They’re scared I might give a bad report of them to my father,’ Tarvek corrected. ‘Here.’

It was a laboratory, containing the corpse of a young woman. No, not quite a corpse, there was a tube running into her mouth and her chest rose and fell. Wires ran from her head, so many that her face was obscured, connecting to an armature from which hung a mask and a pair of hands, dangling limp.

‘My sister,’ said Tarvek, flatly.

Gil walked over, seeing the machinery — ingenious if confusing, the bio-to-clank interface was really rather advanced and he was sure some of it was newly invented even if he was completely unsure why Tarvek had gone in this direction — and then forcing himself to see the girl. A few years older than Tarvek, early twenties probably, he could just see the stubble of hair through the occluding wires, the same deep red as Tarvek’s. ‘What happened to her?’ he asked.

‘My father. He was attempting an experiment.’

‘What kind of experiment?’ Gil’s voice was starting to take on undertones of the madness place, attempting to follow this was fascinating.

‘I don’t know. I was in Paris.’ There was an edge to Tarvek’s voice — guilt, resentment, despair — that told Gil the second part was true. The first part? No.

Gil turned on him, swinging around and into Tarvek’s space abruptly enough to make him step back. ‘If you want me to help with this, Sturmvoraus, you’d better not start by lying about it.’

‘You don’t have a choice,’ Tarvek answered, taking his glasses off and cleaning them. ‘How long do you think Teufel’s son would last if everyone knew?’

Tarvek had picked a really helpful time to blind himself because Gil couldn’t quite help gawping at him and it took a moment to master his face. He was going to have _words_ with his father, starting with “what the heck?” As if the cover story about the mad sausagemaker hadn’t been bad enough. ‘Fair point,’ he said. He didn’t have to stay here, he was fairly sure his father could prove Teufel hadn’t had a son or he wouldn’t have risked setting that story up in the first place. On the other hand he didn’t know what purpose it was meant to serve and…he was here. ‘I still need to know what we’re trying to fix if you want me to sort it out for you.’

‘Consciousness transfer. Long distance. That really is all I know, and obviously it didn’t work.’

That wasn’t Gil’s area at all, but… ‘So what were you trying to do with this?’ he asked, shaking one of the metal arms slightly. ‘It’s a biological problem, if you couldn’t fix it in that body building a new one would be easier than trying to connect her up to a clank.’

‘Because this is what I know how to do,’ said Tarvek, voice clipped.

Gil snorted. ‘I know you paid more attention in class than _that_.’

‘This isn’t as simple as you seem to think!’ Tarvek said, throwing up his hands and voice starting to take on harmonics of the madness place himself. ‘The brain was damaged, I couldn’t get it to register nerve impulses at all until I put them through galvanic relays, she gets more feeling from the armature than her own body now. When it’s working at all!’

‘Fine, and it’s too late to go back and try something else anyway,’ said Gil. ‘You must have severed nerve connections to get the relays in.’

‘Well, of course.’

‘So what do you want me to do? Clank-work isn’t my area of expertise,’ said Gil, examining the relays again. Tarvek really had invented some new techniques here.

‘You don’t have an area of expertise, you don’t have the attention span,’ said Tarvek, coming over to join him.

‘And you think that’s a good way to get my best effort here?’ Gil asked. ‘Can she hear us?’

‘I…don’t know. There’s no reason why not, and she can sometimes, but there’s no reason for the armature to go unresponsive either, she keeps…retreating. Before I made that it was worse, I…’

‘Trauma,’ said Gil. ‘She needs something close to what she’s lost.’

‘I can’t even get her something close to a _body_.’

Gil didn’t look up. There was too much despair and self-loathing there and Tarvek would never be showing it to _him_ if he wasn’t near the end of his rope already. ‘It’s not lack of attention span, Sturmvoraus, it’s cross-disciplinary interests,’ he said, quickly and sharply. ‘We need to go bio-mechanical. I can’t make a clank anywhere near detailed enough for this, and I don’t believe you can either, but if we can get flesh around an armature and use your galvanic relays to boost the nerve signals I think we can do this.’

* * *

Gil had ideas and it was a relief, when Tarvek had been feeling like he’d tried everything and none of it had worked, to have someone firing them at him. Gil was bossy in the grip of the Spark (in the grip of any bright idea really, it had always been so obvious he was going to be a Spark to be reckoned with, and it was too easy to remember a time Tarvek would have followed him anywhere whatever he told himself). So Tarvek snapped back, shooting ideas down, pointing out what he’d already implemented, adding new ideas of his own when he’d thought he didn’t have any left.

At one point he called for servants to bring in equipment from one of his father’s labs, bio equipment.

‘So that’s your father’s speciality,’ Gil said flatly.

‘One of them,’ said Tarvek. Whatever else you could say his father was a powerful Spark.

‘So he’s not doing this, because?’

‘He’s grieving.’ Tarvek didn’t really feel like defending his father, but neither did he want…whatever this was from Gil. Gil on his side against his family, no, that was too strange.

‘So are you,’ said Gil, bluntly. ‘He called you back from Paris for this and he can’t even help?’

‘What would you know about family, considering who your father is?’

That startled a strange expression from Gil. Hurt, defensive, maybe protective, angry. Then his face shut down completely and when he answered he sounded almost amused. ‘You may have a point.’

They set up vats growing cloned flesh, cloned organs, without raising the subject again. Tarvek started on a more complicated armature, one intended to merge with flesh, one that could contain a brain with the same built in life support any body had for it. It was a surprise when, hours later, Gil straightened up from a vat and peeled off bloody gloves, to say, ‘I can watch this for a bit. Sleep in shifts?’ It made sense, but Tarvek found himself looking at Anevka, laid out under her sheet like a corpse, and reflecting that Gil was here under duress. Gil rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not going to hurt her, she’s the victim here.’

 _She’s the victim here._ No mention of the blackmail material Tarvek had. There was something wrong here. Tarvek had been prepared for Gil to try and kill him to silence him, that was a risk blackmailers took, but…nothing. Gil was totally compliant, and yet hardly seemed cowed, he could just be putting up a front…or picking his battles, which was what Tarvek would do in this situation, ride it out until he figured things out, but somehow that didn’t seem like an attitude he’d expect from _Gil._ It was nothing that could be solved by refusing to sleep, though, and in fact he’d stand a better chance of working it out if he did sleep. ‘You’d better not,’ he said. ‘Wake me if anything happens.’

‘Of course,’ said Gil, already turning back to monitor his vats.

* * *

It was a bit more than a week later when a servant alerted Tarvek that Castle Wulfenbach was flying over nearby. Not that unusual, and it didn’t seem particularly aimed at Sturmhalten. He found Gil watching it out of a window.

‘Homesick?’ he asked.

‘Nah,’ said Gil, absently. ‘I like Paris.’ Then, a bit needling, ‘You?’

Tarvek could either deny missing Castle Wulfenbach, letting Gil off the hook for something he was not inclined to _ever_ forgive or admit that he did and that was handing the advantage to Gil in a different way. ‘I liked Paris too.’

‘You’re not going back there?’

‘I have other relatives. And Anevka will probably need me.’ Hopefully. If they stopped her dying.

‘She shouldn’t if we do it right,’ said Gil.

Tarvek sighed. ‘I didn’t just mean maintenance.’ He’d meant in case his father tried it again.

Gil nodded and swung away from the window. ‘Guess we’d better get back to work.’

Tarvek’s armature was going better now he was basing more of it on a skeleton and not trying to work joints that could somehow imitate the human form in a purely metal body. He was meticulously threading wires down the spine when a voice said, ‘…Tarvek?’

‘Anevka!’ He put down his tools instead of dropping them and turned to see the mask moving jerkily, a blue light behind its eyes. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Dead.’

‘You’re _not_ dead.’ He grabbed the armature’s hand, knowing she could feel the pressure at least. ‘We’re working on a body for you, it will be fine.’

‘Oh dear. I’m going to be a patchwork now?’ she sounded disdainful but ever so much more like herself, leaving Tarvek simultaneously annoyed and weak with relief.

‘No! Well, sort of, but you won’t _look_ like one, we’ll see to that,’ he promised.

‘We?’ The mask swivelled and fixed on Gil. ‘Ah, a guest. I do apologise, I’m hardly presentable.’

‘Nonsense, madame,’ said Gil. He walked over and took the hand Tarvek wasn’t holding, bowed over it and kissed it. ‘Gilgamesh Holzfäller at your service.’

‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ said Anevka, and she did sound charmed.

‘ _Gil,_ ’ snapped Tarvek.

Gil ignored him. ‘As you’ve heard, we’re working on a body worthy of you,’ he said. ‘If you’d like an explanation?’

‘That would be nice,’ said Anevka, mask swivelling to range over their equipment.

Tarvek decided to jump back in at that point — it was _his_ equipment as much as Gil’s — and for a while the two of them explained things to a fascinated Anevka. The point at which _she_ started volunteering ideas was the point at which Tarvek started seriously believing she might hold on long enough for them to do this. So when the armature went limp halfway through an animated discussion about proprioception he had to bite back a cry of dismay and frustration before checking the readings. ‘She exhausted herself,’ he said, feeling his heart slow down to normal. ‘She’s sleeping, I think, that was the first time she’s said more than a few words in weeks.’

‘Maybe she found the company more worth staying awake for,’ said Gil.

It was a joke, but maybe a bit too close to the truth for comfort. ‘I don’t know _what_ she thinks of the kind of company that would flirt with a _comatose girl_ ,’ Tarvek snapped back.

‘I was being nice,’ said Gil.

‘By your standards, I suppose you were.’ Something behind Gil let out a shrill whistle of alarm. ‘And watch that!’ Tarvek added, even as Gil turned, muttering curses, to throw switches and release some pressure.

They worked separately for a while and then compared notes and worked together on the interfaces for the nervous system for a few hours. It was strangely nice, when they were both too involved in their work to needle each other, how easily they could follow one another’s trains of thought. Separating to work on their own things again after that Tarvek had to abandon the fine work on the spinal column and do some rougher work on the arm skeleton, he was getting too tired for the fine motions and couldn’t risk a mistake.

‘Aren’t you about to fall asleep?’ Gil asked.

Tarvek hesitated and glanced at the couch in the corner. He’d been sleeping in here when it was just him, but since Gil’s arrival he’d slept in his own room. After Anevka had actually woken up, though, he didn’t want to miss it if she did again. Nor was he entirely sure he liked the idea of her and Gil talking alone in the middle of the night, it was…disconcerting. ‘I’ll sleep in here,’ he said.

Gil shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

It was strange falling asleep with someone else in the room, _especially_ someone he wasn’t sure he could trust. He kept opening his eyes any time he heard Gil close to him, but Gil seemed completely oblivious to anything that wasn’t bubbling in a vat and Tarvek was tired enough that eventually sleep pulled him under.

* * *

Gil stopped pretending to set dials and walked over to check Tarvek was really asleep. Well, he could be faking, but the deep, even breaths were pretty convincing. Checking Anevka’s dials was more conclusive, she was still deep under and probably would be for a while. Gil paused in the doorway, strangely worried about leaving them vulnerable like that. He hoped they’d be okay until he got back, and then told himself that this was their own castle and Tarvek clearly hadn’t gone without sleep entirely in the weeks before Gil showed up. They’d be fine.

It took ten minutes brisk walk to get out of Sturmhalten and then another five of aimless wandering before a shadow suddenly loomed at him. ‘Hello, Father,’ said Gil.

‘Why aren’t you in Paris?’ his father demanded.

‘Surprisingly enough, I’m being blackmailed. Tarvek says if I help him he won’t tell everyone I’m Teufel’s son.’ Gil folded his arms and looked at his father sardonically. ‘I wonder where he got that idea?’

‘That was intended for Voltaire, not Sturmvoraus,’ said his father, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘That’s worrying, and he’s far too interested in you.’

‘Yes, it’s worrying,’ said Gil. ‘But I’m more worried about your idea of suitable cover stories. Wasn’t the sausage maker bad enough?’

‘That was not intended for Sturmvoraus either.’

‘But he keeps _finding_ them. And they’re really weird stories. Why Teufel? And then you sent Bang after me, did you _want_ everyone to think I’m a pirate?’ Gil broke off to snicker, because, oh dear, Tarvek probably did think he was a pirate. That really shouldn’t be funny.

‘Being Teufel’s son would give me a reason to hide your ancestry without it being anything politically useful to anyone. Voltaire isn’t the type to take revenge on someone’s child. Having you work with Bang is useful for other reasons.’

‘Reasons you’re going to tell me?’ prompted Gil, feeling somewhat let down that his father had had good reasons after all. His father gave an annoying half-smile. ‘ _Father._ ’

‘Not important for now,’ said his father. ‘I have evidence enough against it if needed, or we can simply deal with Sturmvoraus, there’s no need for you to stay here.’

‘No, I’m staying here,’ said Gil.

His father raised his eyebrows at him. ‘Really? And what are you being blackmailed into doing, anyway? I doubt it involves piracy.’

‘Of course not,’ said Gil. ‘Sturmvoraus wanted me to help save his sister. She’s…their father experimented on her and she’s in a coma, it’s way outside Tarvek’s area of expertise but he’s still done a lot and I don’t think there’s anyone he can ask, or he wouldn’t be trying blackmail. Not this stupidly, anyway.’ Although it wasn’t quite as stupid as he’d thought when he assumed Tarvek had accurate information. Teufel wasn’t still around to kill him for threatening his son.

‘So, you intend to save the girl,’ said his father, drily enough that Gil wondered which of his Paris activities were being reported to him.

‘There’s no call to let her die, none of this is _her_ fault,’ said Gil. ‘I’m staying. As long as Tarvek thinks he’s already got a hold on me he won’t try anything. We’ll finish in a few months, and then he’ll let me get back to Paris and your _really strange_ cover story will remain intact.’

‘Close contact with Sturmvoraus is not safe.’

‘I can handle Tarvek!’

‘And his father?’

Gil sighed. ‘I don’t know, I haven’t even met him. But I’m not helpless, I’ve dealt with enough whacked out Sparks in Paris to have some idea what I’m doing. Don’t you have any faith in your training?’

‘Gilgamesh.’ His father stopped and rubbed the bridge of his nose again. ‘Very well. But if anything goes wrong.’ He pulled a beacon out of his pocket and pressed it into Gil’s hand. Great, he’d come to this meeting knowing Gil would insist on staying and prepared for it, was Gil really that predictable?

‘Thanks,’ said Gil. ‘And I suppose Castle Wulfenbach will be staying close?’

‘There’s been some banditry in the area. We’re staying until it’s dealt with, which should take, oh, a couple of months.’

‘I’m sure it will.’ Gil pocketed the beacon. ‘If that was all?’

‘Be careful.’

‘I will, Father,’ said Gil, somewhere between dutiful, exasperated and touched.

His father turned and strode off into the shadows and Gil set off briskly back to the palace.

* * *

Gil re-entered the laboratory and quickly checked all the dials, just in case anything had gone critical in his absence, before giving the room more than a brief glance to make sure Tarvek was still where he’d left him and no one else had entered. Things were progressing fine and he wandered over to check on Tarvek’s projects — not to see that they were okay, unlike the organics Gil was working with they didn’t do anything unless they were being actively worked on, but out of curiosity. He’d done some clank-work himself, including ones that could adapt and learn in a very rudimentary way, but nothing as delicate as this and he was amassing some rather interesting notes.

Tarvek stirred slightly as Gil was looking at sketches for the nervous system on a nearby table, and Gil looked at him properly for the first time. He was curled on his side, knees drawn up against his chest, mouth slightly parted and breath coming in short gasping pants like a hunted animal. Eyes glittered and darted beneath half open eyelids. It was _familiar_. Tarvek in the throes of a nightmare still looked the same now as he always had and it was memory more than intention that had Gil reaching out to shake his shoulder.

The next moment Gil was sitting on the floor with a sharp pain in his eye socket and blinking away stars. ‘What was _that_ for?’ he demanded.

Tarvek took advantage of his confusion to throw himself on top of Gil, grabbing his arms and pushing him up against the side of a vat. ‘Where’s your weapon?’ he demanded, leaning over Gil.

‘I don’t _have_ a weapon!’ Gil said, shoving him away. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

Tarvek held onto Gil, rolling over with him, and this time Gil wound up on top, Tarvek still holding Gil’s arms away from him. ‘What were you planning on doing then? Strangling me?’

‘Of course not!’ Gil said, and then realised that Tarvek had woken up to someone he was blackmailing leaning over him. He’d probably thought Gil was about to stab him. The confused, and rather ridiculous, hurt at being punched out of nowhere faded and he relaxed, sliding back off Tarvek and deliberately going limp. ‘I was planning on _waking you up_. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’

Tarvek cautiously let go and pulled away. ‘Did something go wrong?’

‘No, it…it was nothing. Go back to sleep.’

‘I can’t have been asleep for that long.’ Tarvek retrieved his glasses from where they’d fallen under the couch, stood up and went to check the dials on Anevka’s device.

‘Barely an hour,’ Gil said, standing up himself and prodding gingerly at a black eye.

‘And you just felt like preventing me from sleeping?’

Gil sighed. ‘You were having a nightmare, okay? And I didn’t think.’

‘Well, I don’t think I’ll be going straight back to sleep now,’ said Tarvek, taking his glasses off for a moment to rub his eyes. ‘I’m sending for drinks. Want one?’

‘Uh, sure,’ said Gil.

Which was how they wound up drinking cocoa, Gil sitting on the floor with his back against a cloning vat and Tarvek sprawled on the couch so clearly half asleep that Gil had a bet on with himself about whether they were going to wind up with cocoa all over the floor.

‘You are taking being blackmailed really well,’ Tarvek said, shooting Gil a suspicious look.

‘Thank you?’ said Gil, tipping his head back and stretching his legs out comfortably.

‘You’re up to something.’

‘Who, me? I’m not the one with all the plots.’

Tarvek sat up straighter. ‘You’re not an idiot, Holzfäller. Don’t treat me like one.’

‘I’m not up to anything.’ Gil took a gulp of his cocoa, enjoying the warmth and sweetness. ‘I’m just not mad at you for wanting to save your sister.’

‘Or that I forced you to help?’

‘I would have preferred not to be forced, but of course you couldn’t do anything as simple as ask,’ said Gil.

‘When have you ever cared about saving anyone?’ Tarvek demanded.

‘Oh, please.’ Gil put down his empty mug and ran a hand through his hair. ‘I must have saved Zola a dozen times, at least. You’re not a very observant stalker.’

‘I was not stalking you. And you were saving Zola? _Why?_ ’

‘Good question,’ muttered Gil, thinking of crocodiles in chefs’ hats and giant squid. ‘Because someone has to, I guess.’

Tarvek rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t know about _has_ to.’

‘Heh.’ Gil could feel himself smiling, slightly. ‘But she doesn’t deserve to die for being annoying.’

‘So you save people who don’t deserve to die?’

‘As many of them as I can, anyway,’ said Gil, closing his eyes. He wasn’t exactly tired, but it was comfortable here.

‘ _That’s_ what you were doing?’ Tarvek’s voice was sharp and, when Gil opened his eyes, he was gesturing with his mug and leaving a trail of cocoa across the floor. Gil spent a moment wondering which side of him had won that bet, before being pulled back to what Tarvek was saying. ‘I thought you were involved in something criminal! Or in trouble of some kind, not…practising _amateur heroics_.’

‘Well, it’s not the only thing I was doing,’ said Gil, and then wondered if he was more tired than he’d thought to actually say that. ‘But I wasn’t commiting any crimes.’ Or at least, only the kind of minor crimes involved in breaking into places where people needed rescuing. And one instance of horse theft, horse modification, and reckless driving.

‘Oh, really. Because I can think of at least one count of _property damage_ ,’ said Tarvek.

Gil snickered and then had it turn into a yawn halfway through.

Tarvek looked at him. ‘You’re tired too?’

‘Yeah, but I don’t need to sleep yet.’ Gil pulled himself to his feet, he’d have a better chance waking up a bit moving. He hadn’t been without sleep for that long, even if he had spent some of his own “sleep shifts” poking around Sturmhalten. ‘And the sooner you sleep the sooner it gets to my shift.’

‘Mm.’ Tarvek put his cocoa down and stood up. ‘I’ll sleep in my own room this time. Call me if Anevka wakes up.’

‘Yeah. Of course,’ said Gil.

* * *

As it happened the next time Anevka woke up, a few days later, it was Gil who was asleep. Tarvek was taking a newly cast skull out of its wax casing when a voice behind him said, ‘Nice bone structure.’

‘Given that it’s a copy of yours, I’m not sure whether that was a compliment or vanity,’ said Tarvek, turning around with it still in his hands. ‘Good morning, Anevka.’

‘Hmm. And they say beauty’s only skin deep. You’re doing an excellent job on the underpinnings,’ said Anevka. The mask swivelled. ‘Where’s your friend.’

‘Asleep. And he’s not my friend.’

‘Really? How did you convince him to do this, then?’ asked Anevka, sounding curious about what strings he’d pulled.

‘Blackmail,’ said Tarvek. ‘Mostly.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you blackmailed him with?’ The mask tipped to one side, a hand coming up to the unmoving lips. The familiarity of the gesture was strangely eerie on the inhuman armature, like seeing Anevka’s ghost. ‘No, I thought not. And mostly?’

‘Apparently he enjoys playing the hero,’ said Tarvek, idly scraping off some more wax.

‘And I’m a damsel in distress? How exciting. But was it really wise to bring a hero _here_?’

‘He’s not a very good one,’ said Tarvek, not meeting her eyes — or the glow that would be her eyes. ‘And even the Heterodyne Boys could be fooled.’

‘As I know very well,’ said Anevka, pensively. ‘Still, being saved by a hero. That _is_ fun. Like being in an opera.’

‘He’s not exactly doing it by himself,’ said Tarvek, miffed. ‘And I think Gil’s ideas of heroism come from less cultured sources.’

‘That sounds fun too.’

‘I am not making you a new body just so you can engage in _improper behaviour_ with _Gil_.’

There was a fizzing spluttering sound that had Tarvek dropping the skull and frantically checking all the machinery around Anevka until it died down as suddenly as it had come. ‘I don’t believe you programmed this to allow laughter,’ said Anevka.

‘Fine. I’ll redo the voice control _just_ so you can laugh at me as much as you like. Why not?’ said Tarvek, still with one hand on the bed next to Anevka’s comatose body.

A mechanical hand ruffled his hair. ‘Good boy.’

‘ _Hmph_ ,’ said Tarvek. ‘I don’t know why I bother.’ But he didn’t move away.

* * *

Anevka’s body was laid out before them — both her bodies, nearly identical, down to the equipment wrapped around them keeping them alive. But one was covered in a tracery of red scars and stitchwork and, currently, lacked a top to its skull.

‘All these scars,’ Tarvek said, doubtfully. ‘She’s not going to like it.’

‘They’ll fade in the recovery tank,’ said Gil. ‘Or they should if I take the stitching out first, it’s not the best technique, but —’

‘It’s necessary.’ Most of their family would never talk to Anevka again, anyway. They’d know by now that she’d been…she hadn’t been dead and revived, technically she had as many rights as any of them, but sometimes reality wasn’t as important as appearances. And anyway… ‘We’re going to have to kill her, aren’t we? I’ve read your notes, we can’t possibly transfer the brain fast enough.’

‘Yeah,’ said Gil, fiddling with the equipment set up overhead. ‘Is that going to be…you know…a problem? It shouldn’t be obvious it was necessary to anyone who hasn’t read the notes.’

‘They’re all going to assume it, anyway,’ said Tarvek. ‘She wasn’t in line to inherit, so it won’t matter that way.’ He considered saying it would be best if people didn’t know all the same, but giving Gil counter-blackmail material meant losing his hold on him and he couldn’t afford to yet.

Gil just nodded, making tiny adjustments to the dials, expression pensive.

‘What is it?’ Tarvek asked.

Gil glanced at Anevka’s dials, a habit by this point when about to say something she didn’t need to hear. ‘She’s not going to be dead very long, but even so…with her mental state for the last few months…I don’t know how much of them she’s going to wind up remembering.’

‘Oh,’ said Tarvek. ‘Well. Good.’

‘Is it? It’s still her life.’

‘And she has plenty of other bits of her life to remember that don’t involve being betrayed and scared and _dying_.’

Gil bit his lip for a moment then stopped fidgetting with the dials and said, ‘I think we’re ready.’

Tarvek nodded and pulled his gloves on, going to join Gil by Anevka’s real body. Gil injected Anevka with anaesthetic and started counting down to it taking effect. When he reached zero he started opening up the skull. Tarvek began stripping the connections to the armature; that could have been done earlier, but it was better to avoid complete sensory deprivation. They finished almost at the same time. Tarvek nodded and stepped back for Gil to lift the top of the skull off, wires sliding out through the holes he’d drilled for them. And the brain — _Anevka_ — was lifted very carefully in Gil’s hands and transferred to the empty metal skull.

‘I’m connecting the blood supply, get started on the nerves,’ Gil snapped, the tension in his voice neither anger nor nerves but madness. Tarvek was there himself, the operation no longer horrible and desperate but _amazing_ , and every nerve connection he made felt right and like he couldn’t _possibly_ fail. They met each other’s eyes as Gil finished sewing the skin over the skull and Tarvek closed up the last incision at the base of the spine. They flipped the body over and snapped the restraints closed together and Tarvek beat Gil to flipping the switch by seconds.

Blue lightning flared and the body convulsed, muscles tightening. Anevka’s eyes snapped open and she pulled against the restraints, teeth gritted, before she fell back, snarling turning into a moue of displeasure. ‘Why am I tied down?’

‘It worked!’ Tarvek exclaimed, unable to stop himself. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Wonderful,’ said Anevka, sounding somewhat startled. ‘I have a _body_ , it feels amazing, _why am I tied down?_ ’

‘You’re experiencing post-revivification rush,’ Tarvek answered, glancing at Gil. ‘That doesn’t mean your body is healed enough for you to be running around in it.’ Also, she might have been a ravening monster, but there was a reason they hadn’t taken the restraints off when she wasn’t.

‘And how long are you going to leave them on?’ Anevka asked.

‘If you promise to stay still with them off, just a few hours to let the healing get started,’ said Gil. ‘It will be a few weeks before you’re ready for the recovery tank.’

‘Well, I certainly don’t want to be strapped to a table for _that_ long,’ said Anevka, looking at him from under her eyelashes. ‘However charming the person doing it.’

Gil actually looked a bit taken aback. ‘You remember me?’

‘That’s not the impression I was getting,’ Tarvek muttered and they both shot him sidelong looks.

‘I remember you perfectly well, Gilgamesh Holzfäller,’ said Anevka.

‘That’s good,’ said Gil. ‘There can hardly have been any memory loss at all. Can you wiggle your toes?’

The examination, checking Anevka could move her extremities and feel touch on various parts of her body — a test she insisted on having performed by Gil — took a while and afterwards she was unchained in exchange for a promise to stay still and given a novel to read. When Tarvek glanced back from the lab door she was looking completely absorbed in it and he wondered how bored she must have been for the last months.

‘That really worked,’ he said, leaning against the corridor wall.

‘You noticed,’ said Gil, grinning at him. ‘Yeah. Even if something goes wrong now it won’t be the body rejecting her completely.’

‘Another month,’ said Tarvek. Two weeks like this, two in the recovery tank. _She wasn’t going to die now whatever happened_. ‘And I suppose you’ll be going back to Paris after that.’

‘I have a lot of coursework to catch up on. Don’t suppose you’ll be coming back? If you’re worried about your relatives I could sort things out by heroicly killing your rather.’

‘Heh. Tempting, but I’d rather you didn’t.’ He was going to have to tell his father that Anevka was recovering. Having him more stable would be a relief to everyone, even if Anevka probably didn’t want to deal with him yet. Maybe Tarvek could convince him she needed a bit more recovery time, even though she was going to be fine. ‘And weren’t you eager to get rid of me?’

‘You’re growing on me now you’re doing something other than turning up to disapprove of me.’

‘You have been reining in your libertine ways somewhat.’

‘What were you expecting me to do, hit on your maidservants?’ Gil snorted. ‘They’re scared of Sparks.’

‘Most women are scared of Sparks,’ said Tarvek resignedly.

Gil blinked at him. ‘You’ve been meeting the wrong girls.’ A pensive glance at the ceiling. ‘Maybe more sensible girls than the ones I keep meeting, but…wow, that sounds stupidly depressing.’

‘The kind of girls _you_ know —’ Tarvek began.

‘Don’t run screaming when they find out something that is kind of an important part of who I am?’ suggested Gil. ‘And _I_ was disappointed that there don’t seem to be any female Sparks in Europa.’

‘Uh…’ Of course there weren’t, most of the ones without connections wound up _here_. Some of the ones with connections, too, if they turned out to be the wrong kind of connections or the Geisterdamen got lucky. ‘I suppose most of the Spark girls I know are relatives.’ Relatives in the part of the family that wouldn’t just hand them over to his father. ‘And there aren’t many of them.’

Gil looked thoughtful for a moment and then laughed. ‘Yeah, I don’t think dating any of your relatives would work.’

‘ _Obviously_ not,’ said Tarvek.

Gil’s grin, strangely, got wider. ‘Come on, let’s get lunch,’ he said.

* * *

Anevka was about a week into the recovery process and doing well and Gil was finding himself surprisingly ambivalent about returning to Paris in less than a month. Of course he wanted to get back to his friends and his courses and, generally, his life. But, having spent most of his childhood hiding his Spark from people, he’d reached the point where he could be a Spark around other people and not hide the fact he could keep up with them only to find very few of _them_ could keep up with _him_. He might complain about the lack of girls the most, but even his classmates often seemed to be just a little bit, frustratingly, behind. Tarvek could keep up, though, and however infuriating he was outside the lab…Gil was going to miss working with him. Besides all that there was something about Sturmhalten that set his teeth on edge. People were scared of the ruling family, scared of Sparks, just plain _scared_. It wasn’t a good reason to want to stick around when there was nothing at all he could do about it, but it just felt like there was something going on he didn’t know about and should. At which point he reminded himself that he didn’t need to take a turn poking around in Tarvek’s life, and a lot of towns were worse off than this. Maybe he was just unfamiliar with the way most towns were run, it wasn’t as if he’d been many places besides Castle Wulfenbach and Paris.

He stopped turning it over to go and see how Anevka was doing. Since the lab was now _de facto_ her room he knocked and waited for permission before entering. The voice that bade him come in was an unfamiliar one, and he entered to find a man sitting beside Anevka’s bed who had to be Tarvek and Anevka’s so far unseen father. Stout and balding, but powerful, and holding himself like one accustomed to power.

‘Who is this?’ Aaronev asked, addressing the question to Tarvek, standing beside him, rather than Gil.

‘This is Gilgamesh Holzfäller, father,’ said Tarvek. He spoke quietly, almost solicitously.

‘A friend from Paris?’ Aaronev did not sound pleased and he was looking hard at Gil.

‘No, father,’ said Tarvek.

‘Hardly,’ said Gil. ‘I’m being blackmailed.’

Aaronev’s expession lightened. ‘I suppose you’ll be gone soon, then. We’ll see you get something for your troubles all the same.’

‘As soon as I’m fully recovered,’ said Anevka. ‘He’s been most useful.’

Gil wandered behind them to start looking at valves, keeping half an eye on them as he did.

‘I see he has. It’s good to see you looking so well,’ said Aaronev. He actually did sound pleased, and genuinely concerned, and not at all guilty.

‘Thank you, Father,’ said Anevka, lowering her lashes over sharp grey eyes.

‘It’s good to see you looking better as well,’ said Tarvek. There was something hopeful about his voice, as if he wasn’t quite sure of that but really wanted it to be true.

‘Thank you, my boy. It’s a shame things didn’t go better, but at least I have Anevka back.’

Did he really mean it was a shame he’d failed to replace his daughter’s mind? Probably. Gil’s hackles were rising and he kept his eyes firmly on a dial he wasn’t seeing.

‘I’m delighted to be back as well, Father.’ Anevka’s tones were cool and even, without a trace of the anxiety in Tarvek’s. Gil wasn’t sure which, if either, of them was acting or for what purpose.

‘Yes,’ said Aaronev, absently. ‘And we must —’ He paused. ‘Well, I shall see you both later, I believe.’

‘It would be best if you didn’t visit too often. Anevka’s health is still delicate,’ said Tarvek.

‘As you say,’ said Aaronev. ‘Still. For a short while tomorrow.’

‘I shall look forward to it,’ said Anevka.

Gil waited until the footsteps faded away along the corridor before turning away from the dial and staring at the two Sturmvorauses. ‘What the hell was that?’ he demanded.

‘Father doesn’t approve of involving outsiders in family business,’ said Tarvek.

‘I _got_ that part. Why are you two suddenly acting like you’re fine with all this?’ Gil threw his hands up in frustration.

Anevka looked at him, smiling thinly. ‘He would regard anything less as treachery.’

‘Seriously? Would he hurt you?’ Gil stopped, realising what he’d said and to who as two incredulous, ironic gazes landed on him. There was nothing hugely similar about Tarvek and Anevka’s features but for a moment they looked terribly alike. ‘I mean…over that?’

‘I believe he would refrain from destroying Tarvek to preserve the bloodline,’ said Anevka. ‘There are other methods of control.’

‘Including an army,’ said Tarvek, drily. ‘He has resources we don’t.’

 _My father rules Europa and I’m not afraid to argue with him._ Gil bit his tongue, looked away. ‘Would he let both of you go to Paris?’

‘At once? No. He never intended to let me go at all,’ said Anevka.

‘We can _act,_ Holzfäller. He’s too wrapped up in his obsessions to notice we don’t share them unless his face is rubbed in it,’ said Tarvek. There was a contempt there at odds with the solicitousness earlier, and the solicitousness should have been fake — a way to placate his father — but Gil wasn’t sure. He was terrified for them, suddenly, around a danger they were both used to navigating (and one of them had failed to do so, or been so busy avoiding that one they’d failed to see another one coming).

It _should_ have been Anevka he was most scared for. She was the one who had been hurt, the one who was not the heir, _disposable_. The Mad Scientist’s Beautiful Daughter it would almost have been traditional to rescue. Except that there was something about Anevka’s cool detachment that might be more than a consequence of trauma or remembered disconnect from her body. Except that if she’d been the one to escape, he wasn’t sure she’d have come back for a damaged sibling.

* * *

They put Anevka into the tank a week later, Gil taking the stitches out carefully beforehand and complaining about it. Once placed there she floated, eyes open and vague, chest rising and falling as she breathed liquid as easily as air. ‘Is she conscious?’ Tarvek asked, putting one hand on the front of the glass tube.

‘Partly,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve heard it’s a dreamlike state.’

‘You know a lot of people who’ve needed reviving?’

‘At least one,’ said Gil. He twisted the dial and stood back, looking satisfied.

‘From the school?’

Gil snorted. ‘Trying to get more blackmail material? No, not from the school. Not Fifty Families either.’

‘And you know a lot of revivification techniques.’

‘Well, there are people I wouldn’t be willing to let go of,’ said Gil, running a hand through his hair.

That made sense. Tarvek hadn’t been willing to let go of Anevka. His father, far more disturbingly, still wouldn’t let go of Lucrezia. But. ‘ _Who?_ Your pirate doxy?’

‘Bang?’ asked Gil, startled. ‘Well, maybe, but I’d kind of expect her to survive being shot point blank anyway. And she’s _not_ my…anything.’

‘So who then? You don’t have any family, and from what I remember you didn’t have any friends on Castle Wulfenbach.’

‘Things change. You remember Theo and Sleipnir?’ Gil’s voice was a little clipped, the barb had maybe gone home. Maybe more than Tarvek had really meant it to, come to that, he wasn’t sure whether he was trying to hurt Gil or just…jealous, really, that he’d been able to make friends in a place where Tarvek had thought he couldn’t. That he’d been able to replace Tarvek after all. There was no one to make friends with in Sturmhalten.

‘So they like you now?’

‘Maybe, it’s been a while since —’ Gil’s scowl deepened. ‘It’s none of your business anyway.’

Definitely hit a sore spot. But it was impossible not to push a little harder. ‘And I don’t suppose _they_ know who you are?’

‘Shut up,’ Gil snapped, glaring at him.

‘Can’t risk having anyone know anything about you, can you? I still don’t know why it even mattered to you enough to get me thrown off. Did you think I was —’

‘Going to use it against me?’ Gil said, hands landing on Tarvek’s shoulders and shoving him back hard against the wall. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’

Tarvek glared back. ‘We’ve both changed. I wasn’t — I wasn’t looking for this to use against you.’

‘I notice it didn’t _stop_ you.’

‘You’re the one who said you understood!’

‘There’s a difference between not being mad at you and having any reason to trust you. Now or then.’ He shoved at Tarvek again, knocking his head back against the wall for a moment, and then let go and strode out.

* * *

With Anevka safely in the tank there wasn’t really any need for two of them. There was barely any need for one of them — at this stage even if something went wrong it wouldn’t go wrong fast enough for constant attention to be necessary. It might have been both wiser and kinder to tell Gil he could leave but, stupid as it was, Tarvek couldn’t quite bring himself to. Even if Gil was mad at him — even if Gil hated him — he was still the closest thing he had to an ally at present.

Now he wasn’t needed Gil wandered off to look at the markets and poke around Sturmhalten rather a lot, so he wasn’t in the palace when, a week into Anevka’s healing, Aaronev cornered Tarvek and told him they were having company for dinner. ‘A young woman mending old Spark work in town. She’s with a caravan.’

‘She can’t possibly be a match,’ said Tarvek. ‘She doesn’t even have to be a Spark.’ Presumably something she’d been trading on, if she was making a habit of fixing Spark work in the countryside. She probably was, though, few people could fix Spark work for long without the Spark themselves.

‘You know the chances of that,’ said Aaronev.

‘But, Father. This soon after Anevka? She’s not even recovered.’ He stopped himself saying they couldn’t do this with Gil still present. He knew what his father’s solution to that would be. Gil wasn’t spending that much time around the palace…he certainly didn’t dine with the family…maybe he wouldn’t find out? At least until afterwards, Tarvek wasn’t sure he could count on Gil not hearing rumours of someone gone missing after an invitation to the palace. _Gil rescued girls._ If he did find out he was never, ever going to forgive Tarvek for this. It shouldn’t matter, Gil hated him anyway and had all along. But he’d almost sounded like he wished they were both going back to Paris, that once.

‘I’ve altered the variables again,’ said Aaronev. ‘We have to keep trying. Meet her at the main entrance at six.’

Tarvek looked down and gritted his teeth. ‘Yes, Father.’

The girl, when she arrived, was about Tarvek’s own age, with a mass of curly chestnut hair trying to escape from a braid. She was wearing a discreetly mended dress that was probably her best and a confused and frightened expression that said she’d rather be anywhere but there. Tarvek greeted her, carefully disarming. It would do her no good to try and run, only cause more problems for them. There was nothing to do now but play his part and hope it was over quickly. She talked with him in distracted agreements, clearly unnerved, and more so when she realised he was a Spark. A minor one herself, she still feared strong ones. After all, they were known to prey on those weaker who passed through their cities.

No Anevka, this time, to join them and help keep the conversation going. Tarvek missed her for a moment, and then realised what he was thinking with horror. Would she be expected to play that role again, in the future? Probably. The bell rang for dinner and he took the girl’s arm to lead her in.

The truth serum slipped into her dinner was hardly necessary, except that his father wanted confirmation going in that she was a Spark, so he could see how his variables held up. At least it relaxed her, Tarvek thought bitterly, as she babbled happily about her life on the road. She had run away from parents less than eager for a Spark daughter, but fallen in with good people. There was a boy, the son of the caravan’s master, she had hopes…

Tarvek swallowed mechanically, feeling sick but forcing himself to eat enough that it wouldn’t look strange. He’d done this before. Not with his sister in a tank from the same thing. Not with Gil so close, and Paris such a recent memory, and he couldn’t quite stop himself from feeling.

Afterwards she was carried down by blank faced servants long innured to this and afraid of what might happen to them should they protest. She hadn’t been dosed heavily, she came out of the trance as she was carried and started screaming. Tarvek stepped over to her and shoved a handkerchief into her mouth swiftly, pulling back without meeting her wide, betrayed eyes. His father shot him a questioning look. ‘Holzfäller may be in the palace, father. There’s no need to disturb him.’ Hope flared briefly and wildly across the girl’s face, like the last light of a dying candle.

‘Good thinking,’ said Tarvek’s father, face set in an anticipatory grin.

The chapel was familiar, with its machinery and piping and the ruined paintings on the ceiling. None of the Geisterdamen were here, they wouldn’t even bother with such an unlikely subject. The girl was dying for nothing. She managed to spit the handkerchief out as she was strapped into the chair, but they were far enough down now there was no risk of her being heard. The strange notes the chair played, music, perhaps, the way a wolf howling is music, strange and high and following no scale, somehow drowned out her screams despite their relative softness. Then there was no sound at all.

‘Dead,’ said Tarvek’s father, dropping a limp wrist, voice heavy with discouragement.

Tarvek breathed out carefully, feeling like he might throw up and still terribly relieved that she was dead outright. He was never sure they bothered to finish the comatose ones before dumping them into whatever hole they used. ‘May I Ieave?’ he asked, perhaps less tactful than he should be, but not feeling up to feigning either enthusiasm or comfort.

* * *

Anevka was floating in her tank, hands palm out and raised slightly away from her body by the pressure of the liquid. Tarvek checked the dials involuntarily, he hadn’t come in here for that but it was habit now. He wasn’t sure what he had come in for. Pressing his palms against the glass in roughly the same place where hers floated further in, he tipped his head back to look into her face. ‘If I’d been here.’ It was a broken thought, he had no idea what he would have done. But something. Maybe his father had had a better idea, it couldn’t be coincidence that this happened only a few months after Tarvek left. ‘She probably deserved saving more than you.’ But he hadn’t tried, not for a stranger, what did he care what anyone deserved? ‘I’d probably better hope you can’t hear this, but I’m not sure you’d care.’ He let his head fall forward against the cool glass for a moment, then pulled back and went to flop miserably on the couch. He wondered vaguely whether Anevka _was_ aware of him, whether it was wise to show her this much vulnerability, whether that thought made any sense when she was currently floating in a tube. But those were just habits of thought, swirling around on the surface, and he couldn’t stop thinking them but neither did they change what was underneath.

He didn’t pay any attention to footsteps in the corridor until the door to the lab opened, and even then he didn’t bother to look up. ‘Tarvek?’ Gil. ‘Are you okay?’

Tarvek considered telling him to go away and then wondered whether he _wanted_ Gil to go away when this might be the last time he was talking to him. Sympathy from Gil was still a strange idea, but he wasn’t sure he didn’t want it. ‘I should never have brought you here,’ he muttered. ‘Except Anevka. I should never have gone to Paris, it’s not as if I can escape from family, but I’m glad I saw you again anyway.’ Well. That was completely incoherent. And the bits that weren’t were embarrassing.

‘Are you drunk?’ Gil sounded rather incredulous.

Tarvek half snorted a laugh into the cushion before tipping his head sideways to see Gil’s puzzled expression with one eye. ‘No.’

‘Would it help?’

‘That is _just_ the kind of suggestion I’d expect from you.’

‘Tell me getting out of here and having a drink someplace more friendly doesn’t sound appealing.’

Actually it really did. Even if he had reservations about Gil’s definition of friendly. ‘Can’t anyway. People recognise me.’ It wasn’t as if they’d dare to turn him away, but they’d be unnerved. No one really wanted their Prince to walk into their bar.

‘Bet they mostly recognise the fancy clothes,’ said Gil. He actually sounded enthusiastic about this now, and why on _Earth_ was he suddenly so determined. He stuck a hand out in Tarvek’s direction. ‘Come and be incognito for a bit.’

‘Are you _serious?_ ’

‘You know you want to.’ There was a grin hovering around the corners of Gil’s mouth.

‘You —’ Okay, he wanted to, and he’d forgotten Gil did this. If this was the last chance he had to be anything close to friends with Gil again maybe taking it wasn’t a bad idea even if he suspected that it was a _terrible_ idea. At least he’d have a few hours to pretend everything wasn’t terrible. He sat up and grabbed Gil’s hand. ‘ _Fine_. But there had better not be any nightclubs.’

Gil laughed and pulled him to his feet. ‘I swear.’

It wasn’t hard to get hold of some old clothes — the servants of Sparks are used to far stranger requests — and Tarvek tucked his hair up into a flat cap feeling rather silly. Gil was probably right that he was nowhere near as recognisible as he thought, but he’d never seen that shade of red outside his family. He hesitated a moment before sliding on an old pair of spectacles — not so old the prescription wasn’t still right, but they were so ridiculously big — and got an ear to ear grin from Gil. ‘What?’ he said.

‘You look familliar.’

‘I look stupid,’ Tarvek grumbled.

‘Truth in advertising,’ said Gil, and then forestalled further arguments by flinging and arm over Tarvek’s shoulder and tugging him along.

* * *

The bar was warm. Sturmhalten wasn’t cold, Tarvek had designed the central heating himself, but stepping into it he felt like he hadn’t been properly warm since Paris. It was also full of people, overlapping conversations, and the smell of sweat and smoke. Gil moved through it easily, becoming part of the crowd the instant he stepped in. Tarvek followed feeling like he was watching the crowd from behind glass somehow, not part of it even as it jostled him.

It took a few drinks for the glass to start dissolving, tipping Tarvek into a loud, convivial world. Gil was striking up random conversations with people…or possibly girls were striking up random conversations with Gil. He seemed to have a few hanging off him in remarkably short order, anyway, possibly because he was buying them drinks. He was also buying a continuous stream of drinks for himself and Tarvek. Getting drunk was a terrible plan, but if he wasn’t in the mood to entertain bad ideas Tarvek wouldn’t have come here in the first place, so he just obediently drank what he was handed.

‘Are you going to buy drinks for every pretty girl in the bar?’ he asked, when every round Gil bought seemed to be bigger than the last one.

Gil grinned at him, lopsided and more than a little drunken, edging into a smirk. ‘Jealous?’

Which was when Tarvek discovered he was drunk enough to slide up against Gil’s shoulder, edging one of the girls out the way, and throw an arm around him. ‘Maybe. You came out with _me_ ,’ he said. He decided Gil’s poleaxed look counted as a victory.

‘What are you…’ Gil muttered. Tarvek may have underestimated how nice curling up against Gil’s shoulder was going to be. Gil smelled of smoke and beer from the pub, and faintly of chemical cleaner from the lab, with traces of perfume from various other people who had been cuddling against his shoulder. Nothing about that combination should have been particularly pleasant, but it was anyway, and Gil was broad and solid and comfortable. Around them he could hear whispering, only close by most of the bar couldn’t care less, and a little bit of cooing, and then Gil suddenly moved out from under him, nearly dropping him on the floor — wow, his reflexes were gone — before grabbing his arm and tugging him up with a frustrated huff. ‘Lightweight.’

But the motion had pulled Gil off balance and he swayed, propping himself up half on the bar and half on Tarvek for a moment. Tarvek smirked. ‘Takes one to know one.’

Outside it was starting to rain. Not hard, just a light drizzle that almost hung in the air rather than falling, leaving everything slick and silver. Tarvek tipped his head back, feeling the cool air on his face, as they turned into a side road. It was quiet here, just the barely there hiss of the rain and the distant sounds of the market, as indistinguishable as the noise of a river. He stumbled against Gil, who fell into the nearest wall and then turned his head to find them face to face and only inches apart. Gil was slightly flushed and regarding Tarvek with huge, puzzled eyes. Tarvek took his shoulders and pushed him up against the wall properly and then stopped, suddenly not sure what he was doing, what he was thinking.

‘What are you playing at?’ Gil asked. There were water droplets collecting on his hair instead of flattening it, like water on feathers. Ridiculously fluffy hair. He was blushing more darkly now and he looked wary, but not really upset.

‘I’m not playing.’ They were nose to nose, nearly, Gil had a few inches of height on Tarvek but not enough to make a difference. He could feel Gil’s hot breath ghosting over his lips.

‘Then what are you —’

Tarvek cut him off by kissing him. Just lightly, pressing his lips against Gil’s. They were unexpectedly soft and slack with surprise. Gil wasn’t kissing him back, what had he expected? What was he going to do now? What — Gil’s lips opened under his and Gil was kissing back and, _oh_ , heat prickled under his skin and he melted against Gil, pressing into his mouth insistently. It was the first — last — only — time and tomorrow would be too late to do this again.

* * *

Gil wasn’t exactly new to being pushed up against a wall and kissed. Some damsels in distress could be really, insistently, grateful for being rescued. Gil usually let them, on the basis that they’d been through a traumatic experience and it couldn’t do any harm, and then gently wrapped them in a coat (distress apparently being hard on clothes) and tried to see that they got home safely. This situation was nothing like that, and thus his experience was no help at all.

What to do when your best friend (or possibly worst enemy) suddenly started kissing you was a different problem and he had no idea what he should do about it. Possibly it hadn’t been that sudden, what with Tarvek flirting with him earlier, but he’d assumed that was a ploy to embarrass him. Apparently not. And what he should do was a moot point, since what he was doing was wrapping his arms around Tarvek to pull him closer. It felt strange to have his arms around someone as big as he was, Tarvek was solidly built and there was a lot of muscle normally hidden under those fancy clothes. He ran his hands up Tarvek’s back and Tarvek’s hands went limp on his shoulders, no longer pushing him back insistently, just resting there. When they pulled back for breath Tarvek’s eyes were huge and dark behind his glasses and Gil found himself smiling fondly at him.

‘We should build something to stop time,’ Tarvek breathed, sounding a bit out of it although it was probably more the alcohol than Gil’s kissing.

‘Later,’ said Gil, wiping a stray strand of red hair back with his thumb from where it had plastered itself to Tarvek’s cheek.

Tarvek leant into the touch, twisting to brush Gil’s thumb with his lips. ‘Defeats the object.’

Oh. Flattering. Gil laughed, startled. ‘Or I could just kiss you again.’

There was a moment when Tarvek frowned, head tipped down, like he’d seen a flaw in that argument and then he breathed out and nodded. Gil parted his lips to ask whether something was wrong, and the next moment Tarvek had darted forward and they _were_ kissing again.

It was a while before they were cold and wet enough that this no longer seemed like a good idea. ‘Let’s go back,’ Gil suggested, arms still wrapped loosely around Tarvek. Who was suddenly stiff, as if Gil had just run a strong current through him.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Gil had almost forgotten why he’d suggested this in the first place. ‘What happened?’

‘Family stuff.’

‘…That bad, huh?’

‘I _really_ don’t want to go back there. We could run away.’ Tarvek was leaning on him, now, cheek to cheek. Nice, but also preventing Gil from seeing his face.

‘Sure,’ Gil said. ‘Paris?’ He had no idea whether Tarvek’s family would cut him off for that, but Gil had enough money he’d already been practically supporting Zola. They’d be fine. ‘What about Anevka, would she want to come?’

‘I didn’t…I meant _now_.’

‘Um. Soaking wet and with only one set of clothes?’ said Gil. Not that he didn’t see the appeal of never seeing Sturmhalten again, but even for him that was a bit impulsive. For Tarvek it was…odd.

He felt more than heard Tarvek sigh. ‘You’re right, I can’t leave Anevka. I already did once.’ He pulled away. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ Gil asked, feeling like he was missing part of this conversation.

‘For offering. It would have been nice.’

‘I didn’t say no, we can still —’

‘No. We can’t.’ Tarvek reached out and put an arm around Gil, pulling him along. ‘You’re right,’ he said, as they fell into step. ‘We should be getting back.’

* * *

Their return to Sturmhalten was met by complete confusion on the part of the servants, leaving Gil wanting to laugh at Tarvek’s rather embarrassed dismissal of them. ‘Where is your bedroom, anyway?’ he asked.

‘Can’t go there,’ Tarvek said, leaning on him a bit more heavily and yawning. ‘It has boobytraps.’

‘You can’t remember how to disarm them, can you?’ said Gil.

‘Of course I can. I’m not letting you see how to do it, though,’ said Tarvek.

Gil considered pointing out that if Tarvek didn’t trust him he wouldn’t be doing this in the first place, but that went both ways, didn’t it? ‘The lab then?’

The lab it was, where Tarvek was poured onto the couch and took about half a second to go utterly limp. Gil gave into the impulse to tuck him in, and then checked the dials on Anevka because apparently he’d completely lost the ability to walk past _without_ doing that. Afterwards he glanced up at her floating in the tube and found one corner of her mouth curled up in a smirk. He blinked at her, looked back at Tarvek dishevelled and asleep on the couch, and doubled over laughing. Not that he was any less ridiculous, he thought, sobering up a bit, but at least he’d never pretended to be above all that.

‘Enjoy your blackmail material,’ he told Anevka, tapping the glass gently.

 _Now what?_ he wondered, as he left the lab. Something was wrong. Tarvek was talking like this was some kind of last chance to escape, like he was in danger, but what had happened? He flopped back against the corridor wall and pushed a hand through hair damp with rain and sweat. What would his father do?

_Examine the facts. Is Tarvek in danger?_

No, not immediate danger.

_Why not?_

Because he wouldn’t deal with it by getting drunk. Fear wouldn’t paralyse Tarvek, he’d run, fight, manipulate, but if something was going to happen tomorrow and he was running out of time he wouldn’t just avoid it. He was too good at surviving to stay where he expected to die.

_So he’s not in danger here?_

Of course he was, but not like that. He was willing to stay in a situation where a misstep could prove fatal but he wouldn’t stay in one that was definitely about to be fatal. Even for Anevka; he was too pragmatic to think he’d be any use to her dead.

_Are you in danger?_

‘What? Gil opened his eyes and blinked at the empty corridor. ‘Why?’ Trying to think like his father was one thing, but when he started getting questions that _really_ sounded like they’d come from his father rather than him it was a little offputting. And now he couldn’t figure out where that thought had come from and his subconscious was imitating his father further by not telling. He rubbed his forehead. Okay, why him? He decided to go and get a drink of water and was back in his own room before he had an answer. Tarvek had been talking as if they were never going to see each other again. So if one of them was dying… ‘No. I might be in danger, but if it was that definite he’d have told me to leave.’ He didn’t bother to imagine his father answering that one.

So, if neither of them were about to wind up dead, then Tarvek thought Gil was going to leave. In a week’s time? Maybe, but this was a little premature, if so. Anyway, Tarvek should have figured out by this point that Gil would be happy to stay in touch. Gil raised his fingers to his lips and felt himself blushing. Okay, no, kissing aside. Something had happened that meant they either wouldn’t be able to keep in touch or that Tarvek expected Gil to change his mind about wanting to… Gil groaned. ‘What has he done?’ he muttered. _Family stuff_. He stood up. He’d been trying not to be too nosy about Sturmhalten, but this definitely called for a much more thorough poking around.

* * *

Gil’s night proved fruitless. Sturmhalten was full of secret passages — he found several — but they all led to either other secret passages or to the sewers, which he saw the merits of as an escape route but which hardly seemed helpful right now. It was just after dawn and Gil was prowling through a morning room when he heard raised voices outside and went to the window. Down below a dark young man in heavy work clothes was arguing with some guards and Gil was just wondering whether someone should intervene before the argument got physical when he saw the young man throw up his hands and turn away. Curious, and still looking for something without knowing what, Gil took one of the secret passages he’d discovered down to a side door and slipped out to intercept the young man in a nearby street.

‘Hey,’ he called and the man turned, face screwing up in suspicion and relaxing when he saw Gil’s worn clothes. ‘I saw you by the palace. Were you looking for something?’

‘Someone,’ said the man. ‘A girl.’

A girl. Anevka had been experimented on, and if Aaronev would use his own daughter of course he’d use others. But he couldn’t have a lot of options, or he wouldn’t have used her, so… ‘A Spark?’

Maybe it was because he hadn’t said ‘madgirl’, maybe Gil’s dismay had shown on his face and been misinterpreted slightly, but the answer he got was, ‘Yes. Although we didn’t tell people…she fixed a lot of Spark work, but some people can.’

Gil nodded. His father had theories about that. ‘What happened?’

‘Anja fixed a pressure boiler for the palace kitchens. I guess that’s how the prince heard about her…she got an invitation and we could hardly refuse it.’ He winced. ‘She was…she is…a pretty girl. Then this morning she didn’t come back. They say she never arrived.’

‘Of _course_ they do,’ said Gil.

‘You asked if she was a Spark, first thing,’ his companion said. ‘If you know something…please…’

Gil reached out and put a hand on his upper arm. ‘I’m sorry. This was the first I’d heard of her, but the princess in there was half dead from some experiment of her father’s recently. Her brother cared enough to save _her_.’ He watched the face in front of him crumple. ‘I guessed something had happened tonight and spent it looking through the Castle…now I know there’s a person I can check the dungeons, but I don’t think…’

‘It’s the kind of thing weak Sparks are always at risk of.’ The voice was hollow. ‘My father and I could never have protected her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Gil, stepping back. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

‘Are you some kind of hero?’

Gil rubbed a hand over his face, embarrassed. ‘Maybe sometimes. Not a very effective one right now.’

‘You’re doing more than anyone else. Thank you.’

Gil shook his head. ‘Thank me if I accomplish anything.’ He set off at a lope back to the palace.

* * *

Tarvek woke to a hand roughly shaking his shoulder. Lashing out was instinctive, but this time Gil dodged, grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the floor in one motion. ‘Get up,’ he said, harshly. ‘We are not having this conversation in here.’

No, not in front of Anevka. Tarvek scrambled his glasses on, still blinking from being suddenly woken up, and let Gil tow him down the corridor and into Gil’s own room. It was a guest room and Gil hadn’t done that much to personalise it during his stay, aside from a shelf now being full of random junk from the market. ‘What is this about?’ Tarvek asked.

‘You tell me!’ Gil shoved the door closed and turned to face Tarvek, leaning his back against it. ‘What happened to Anja?’

‘Who?’

‘I can believe you didn’t bother to learn her name, but you know who I’m talking about. A girl came to the palace last night, she didn’t return. Where. Is. She?’

‘According to whom?’

‘No.’ Gil advanced into the room, teeth bared. ‘We are not playing that game. We are not playing _any_ games. She was a real person, someone who cares about her is out there looking for her, and I want to know if you killed her.’

‘No!’ Tarvek stood his ground, fists clenched.

‘Did your father? Even he wouldn’t use his own daughter as a _first_ resort, right?’ Gil’s smile was more terrible than his snarl had been.

‘I…yes…’ There was no point in lying about that, Gil had figured out too much already. It wasn’t that unusual for Sparks to do that sort of thing, if it was all Gil found out then…then maybe the situation was salvageable. It meant losing Gil but he’d known that. ‘It’s not as if I can stop him.’

‘How many girls?’

‘I don’t know, it was his experiment, I wasn’t involved.’ Not always involved. Not when the Geisterdamen just brought someone in, no need for any subterfuge, not when he’d been in Paris.

‘Who is he trying to transfer? This isn’t just an experiment, it’s specific. Girls, Sparks. Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘STOP LYING TO ME!’ Gil roared it, surging forward and forcing Tarvek back.

‘I’m not…I don’t know!’ Tarvek could hear the panic in his voice, if Gil worked _this_ out he could bring down the order, all their plans, everything.

Gil was still looming at him but when he spoke his voice had dropped in volume again. ‘Did you know it would happen to Anevka?’

Tarvek closed his eyes. ‘We both knew it could. We hoped —’

‘That he’d find enough other Spark girls to sacrifice that he wouldn’t get to her?’ Gil said savagely. ‘You just _let this happen._ ’

‘I couldn’t _stop_ it!’ Tarvek opened his eyes again to glare at Gil. ‘I couldn’t have saved Anevka even if I’d been here, you _know_ that!’

‘You could have told someone! You could have told the Baron, he wouldn’t stand for this —’

‘— he’d kill my father, he’d probably kill everyone —’

‘— you could have told _me._ ’

Tarvek laughed, hearing how wild it sounded. ‘I thought you were a criminal, the last thing I expected was that you’d _care_.’

Gil took a deep breath and pulled back, eyebrows drawn together and face strained. ‘ _I’m_ going to have to tell the Baron,’ he said. ‘I don’t know enough about what’s going on here, I don’t even know how deep in it you were, there’s no way I can fix it by myself. I won’t let him hurt you.’ Gil turned for the door. Tarvek lunged at him, grabbing his arm and hauling him back. Gil tried to carry on going forward and looked surprised when Tarvek dug his heels in and it didn’t work.

‘You can’t,’ said Tarvek and plunged on before Gil could protest. ‘ _He’ll kill you too._ ’

‘What?’ Gil sounded honestly baffled and Tarvek couldn’t suppress an inarticulate sound of frustration.

‘You’re Teufel’s son. Why do you think he kept you? It’s got to be some experiment in nature vs nurture, seeing how the son of a Spark like that could turn out, he’s probably waiting for you to put a foot wrong. How do you think he’s going to take it if you insist on defending —’

‘Someone like you?’

‘ _Someone like me_ , fine, yes, I know what I am! And if I’d known what _you_ were I’d never have — mmph.’

Gil was kissing him. He felt hot, giddy, elated. _Gil didn’t hate him_. He had no idea why, where this had come from, it didn’t matter… Gil pulled back to look at him from an inch away, lips swollen and face flushed. ‘Still mad at you,’ he said, breathlessly.

‘…Fine.’ It wasn’t the same as hate.

‘Still going to the Baron,’ Gil added, leaning forward to rest their foreheads together. ‘Come with me?’

‘No. I can’t, _you_ can’t, it’s a terrible idea.’

He expected Gil to argue again but he just said, softly, ‘okay,’ and leant forward for another kiss. Tarvek didn’t think he’d won the argument. Maybe Gil was just distracted from it, Tarvek was distracted from it. Everything was heat and sensation. Until he felt the sharp prick of a needle in his neck and jerked back, eyes going wide, feeling sick with betrayal. Gil caught him as his knees folded. ‘It’s not poison, it’s a sedative. I’m sorry,’ Gil said quickly, voice hard and rhythmic with urgency. ‘I couldn’t risk you warning anyone.’ He was pulling Tarvek over to the bed, Tarvek tried to resist without being sure why except that he didn’t want to do anything Gil wanted now. ‘It will be okay. I meant it about not letting him hurt you.’

Tarvek opened his mouth, wanting to say something about not trusting Gil, about having less reason to trust him than ever, but all that came out was a mangled collection of sounds and around him the walls were dark and wavery and closing in.

* * *

Gil looked around the clearing and nodded to himself. Far enough from Sturmhalten — they’d see the airships arriving, but there could believably be bandits here. He pressed the beacon and tipped his head back, watching as the sky above him filled with airships like a swarm of bees. The first one down disgorged his father, who looked him over in one sweeping glance from head to toe and then stopped in place and frowned. ‘This is not Sturmhalten.’

‘No,’ said Gil.

‘Nor do you appear to be in trouble.’

‘No. But you were more than a day away on foot and I didn’t have time.’

Around them other airships were touching down, disgorging soldiers who his father waved back. ‘How much time do you have?’

‘Twelve hours, roughly.’

His father raised his eyebrows and said. ‘Then you’d better come aboard and report.’

It wasn’t a huge airship, but it did have a partition to separate them from the pilot, and they were the only two passengers aboard. His father gave orders to take them back up to Castle Wulfenbach while he debriefed Gil and then shut it. ‘You didn’t want me to arrive in Sturmhalten without information or you would have set the beacon off there. What happened?’

Gil gathered his thoughts. ‘Prince Aaronev’s experiment on his daughter wasn’t the first. He’s been killing girls with the Spark trying to complete a long distance consciousness transfer. I don’t think it’s just an experiment but I don’t know who he’s trying to transfer. Or why he’d need to, especially long distance, rather than going to them.’

His father frowned, fists clenching. ‘I may have some idea. Why the time limit?’

‘Ah.’ Gil rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I drugged Tarvek. He’ll probably warn Aaronev when he wakes up.’

‘Sturmvoraus found out you were coming to me?’

Gil swallowed. ‘I told him. I was hoping —’

‘Idiot!’ The roar was expected and Gil managed not to flinch. ‘With this at stake you decided to trust Sturmvoraus?’

‘I _said_ I drugged him,’ said Gil. ‘And with what at stake? I know there’s something more going on than random experiments, but…’ But he didn’t know, not really, he just had the feeling something big had been wrong.

His father took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been studying the Other’s work since I returned. It bore — bears — a strong resemblance to the work of Lucrezia Mongfish, although far beyond anything I’d seen from her. I was trying to piece together what had happened, but either way I assumed the Other dead. Now Aaronev, who was always obsessed with her, is attempting to download someone into the body of a female Spark. It’s too much to be coincidence.’

‘But he used his _daughter_. Weren’t they…’

‘Yes. They were.’

Gil met his father’s grim expression and shuddered. ‘Urgh.’ Anevka had known she was at risk of being used — what the hell would that do to someone, knowing their father was capable of that?

‘Quite.’ There was a pause. ‘From what you say his attempts have so far proved unsuccessful. Still, we must secure everything we can, and assume it is a quarantine situation. I shall give the orders as soon as we reach Castle Wulfenbach.’

Gil glanced out of the airship window, the familiar blue bulk was already starting to loom in the sky, and steeled himself. ‘About Tarvek,’ he said, and then continued faster when his father opened his mouth. ‘I won’t let you hurt him.’

That got him a level, expressionless look that wasn’t a glare but managed to be terrifying anyway. ‘You cannot possibly want him in charge of Sturmhalten after his father is removed.’

‘Of course not! I don’t have any idea how much of this he knew about and he kept lying about it, I wouldn’t trust him in charge of _anything_. That doesn’t mean I want him hurt.’

‘I had hoped your attachment to him was long past. He’s dangerous, raised by an utterly poisonous family —’

‘Because we sent him back there!’ Gil leant forward, which only emphasised how his father towered over him. ‘You can’t blame _him_ for that. Especially if you knew what they were like back then.’

‘It was for your protection. He is a danger to you.’

‘No, he’s not. A danger to other people, maybe, although I don’t think he wanted to be.’ Tarvek in the rain, wanting to run away to Paris. Gil was still furious when he thought about Tarvek having been involved in a murder a few hours before that, but he couldn’t hate him. He’d been so miserable about it and that didn’t help Anja — wouldn’t help any of thousands who could die if Aaronev’s experiment ever succeeded — but it made it so much more confusing. ‘He won’t hurt me.’

‘He _was_ blackmailing you.’

‘And I’ve pretty comprehensively broken that agreement,’ said Gil. ‘But he’s not going to tell anyone I’m Teufel’s son.’

‘Your faith is touching, if bafflingly misplaced.’

‘He won’t! You can test it, it’s not as if I’d actually be in danger if he spread it around, is it?’ Gil said challengingly. He wondered if he could fight his father; if he couldn’t win this argument he might have to. But Tarvek was _not_ going to wind up dead because of this. He shifted, tensing, teeth slightly bared and saw the flash of incredulous worry on his father’s face. It was reassuring, in a way. His father didn’t want to do this either, and might not even be sure he’d win.

‘What do you suggest I do with him?’ his father asked.

‘Take him back to the school on Castle Wulfenbach,’ said Gil. ‘It’s already set up to contain hostages. If he is dangerous it’s not in any way that would hurt the other students. And I won’t be there.’

‘You will not contact him from Paris.’

‘Agreed.’ If that was the price for Tarvek’s safety it was a relatively small one. Tarvek may not want to see him again, anyway, after what had to feel like another betrayal.

‘And you will remain on Castle Wulfenbach while Sturmhalten is taken.’ His father held up his hand. ‘I do try to avoid needless deaths. I _will_ bring him back safely.’

Gil hesitated, but he had a better chance of protecting Tarvek by negotiating with his father than by standing alone against an army. ‘Agreed.’

* * *

The landing platform nearest the school was a familiar vantage point to Gil, who had often watched the comings and goings of the smaller airships from there, so, left to his own devices on Castle Wulfenbach and anxious to know what was going on, it was where he found himself heading. Today he was not the only one to have had that idea and he balked when he heard voices ahead, stopping in the middle of the platform just as Sleipnir turned from her conversation with Theo to see who was coming.

‘Gil! You’re back!’ She sounded surprisingly happy about it, considering she hadn’t bothered answering his letters, and it was enough for Gil to make up his mind and stride across the deck to them. Airships were spreading out around Castle Wulfenbach in almost a grid pattern, all perfectly level with it and well above the cloud cover. When they dropped it would be straight down, they really were going for quarantine procedure. Revenants would have been noticed, but there could be hive engines. Aaronev might even open them if he was desperate and given enough time.

‘Not for long,’ Gil said, distractedly, frowning down at the clouds and wishing he could see through them.

‘You weren’t going to come and visit us?’ Theo asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Sleipnir. ‘I guess you’ve been too busy to answer our letters, but you could at least have come to say hello.’

Gil stared at her, jerked out of his thoughts. ‘Oh,’ he said, feeling a mix of relief and annoyance. His father. Should he say he hadn’t been getting them? They might wonder why anyone would stop them but he was not, he thought with a rush of irritation, leaving them to think he was ignoring them for the next three years. ‘I haven’t been getting them. I guess you didn’t get mine, either.’

‘Are our letters likely to reach you in future?’ Theo asked.

Gil groaned. ‘Probably not. Sorry. But, um. Thanks. It’s good to know you did write.’

They looked at him for moment and he braced himself for questions, but then Sleipnir looked away and gestured to the hovering airships. ‘Do you know what’s going on out there?’

‘The Baron’s taking Sturmhalten,’ said Gil. ‘Prince Aaronev was killing Sparks for some kind of experiment.’ More information than that might get back to them eventually, but he didn’t want to start Tarvek’s time here off with the information his family had been aiding the Other.

‘And you were involved how?’ Theo asked, leaning over the railing beside him.

‘I was…helping Tarvek with something. One of the Sparks Prince Aaronev used was his sister, we were fixing her.’

‘Didn’t you and Sturmvoraus wind up hating each other?’ Sleipnir asked.

‘Well, kind of,’ said Gil. ‘I’m actually really worried about him.’

The airships dropped, the wind from it whipping across their faces and making Gil’s eyes sting so much he almost missed the drop itself blinking. He doubled up over the railing, trying to see through the now shredded cloud cover. The town below them was too far away to make out people, he could just about see the current of motion in the streets. The flare of the lightning moat like a ring of blue around the Castle was easiest to make out and he found himself fixated on it, waiting to see when his father’s forces had taken the Castle by when it went off.

‘So you guys made friends again and then you turned his father in to the Baron?’ said Sleipnir.

‘Yeah,’ said Gil. Accurate as far as it went, friends was maybe not…okay, he hoped he wasn’t blushing. ‘I guess he hates me again now.’

Sleipnir surprised him by throwing an arm around his shoulders. ‘If I know you, you did the right thing.’

‘Thanks,’ said Gil, touched. ‘Um. Look. He’s been through a really rough time and he’s being brought back to the school. I don’t know how things are going to turn out, but could you guys —’

‘Keep an eye on him for you?’ said Theo, eyebrows raised.

‘Yes. Sorry, I know it’s asking —’

‘No problem,’ said Sleipnir, squeezing him. ‘We only have to be friendly, right?’

‘Sure,’ said Theo.

‘Thanks,’ Gil smiled slightly, despite how worried he still was. ‘You guys are the best.’ He was going to miss them, in Paris. Had been missing them, no matter how much fun he’d been having, more than he realised.

‘You know it,’ said Sleipnir.

Below them the clouds drifted together, turning Sturmhalten hazy, and Gil just kept sight of the light of the moat long enough to see it fail.

* * *

Tarvek woke with a headache, feeling sick and thirsty. The first thing he did was reach for his glasses and then wound up staring at them, slightly dazed, when they turned out to be his old pair. Of course. He was still wearing the clothes he’d worn to go out with Gil. The thought caused a jolt of alarm — where was he, what had Gil done, was there still time? — that had him pushing his glasses on and sitting up fast enough to make his head spin. He was — in a bedroom. Two beds, plain walls, wardrobes, shelves. _Familiar_. Not the same room, of course, but he knew the layout of the school on Castle Wulfenbach and…that made no sense. A prisoner, yes, but this didn’t look like a cell. A _student?_

Someone had left a glass of water on his bedside table. He drank it and then, feeling a bit more steady, got up and looked around the room. The wardrobe at the foot of his bed contained his clothes, neatly folded, and there was something vaguely surreal about that. As if he’d never left after all.

A knock on the door had him jumping slightly, not sure what there was to be afraid of but still slightly alarmed. ‘Come in?’ he said.

The door opened and a boy stepped in. ‘Hi. I’m Theopholous Dumedd. Remember me?’ he said, holding out his hand.

Tarvek shook it automatically. ‘Of course.’ Lucrezia’s nephew. Head boy. _Gil’s friend._ ‘What’s going on?’

Theo pushed the door shut and leant on the wall beside it. ‘You’ve been enrolled as a student. I don’t think you’re exactly a hostage, but I doubt you’d be allowed to leave. There are all sorts of rumours about Sturmhalten.’

Of course there were. That could be unpleasant, but he could handle being gossiped about. Was that really the worst that was going to happen to him? And what about his family? ‘Where’s Anevka? My father?’

‘Hezekiah says he saw a girl in a tank being taken to the hospital,’ said Theo, looking sympathetic. ‘I don’t know about your father.’

The hospital. They wouldn’t take her there to experiment on, and especially not if they were just going to let her die. Tarvek breathed out, that was one less thing to worry about. Until she was revived, and they had to decide what to do with her then, at least. ‘Thank you.’ He paused, not sure whether he wanted the answer to his next question. ‘Where’s Gil?’ He had no idea what he’d do if he _found_ Gil.

‘On his way back to Paris,’ said Theo. He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a sealed capsule, throwing it to Tarvek, who caught it and only then recognised it as the same one he’d sent his original message to Gil in, newly sealed. ‘I’ll talk to you later,’ Theo said, and slipped out, leaving Tarvek alone with his message. It was encrypted, not the same encryption he’d used, but not that difficult to break.

_Tarvek,_

_Theo said he’d get this to you without anyone seeing. I won’t be able to contact you for the next three years, I had to agree to that, and I’m not sure you’d want to talk to me anyway. Your father is imprisoned, I’m afraid I don’t know what will happen to him, but Anevka will be kept safe._

_I told the Baron you wouldn’t tell anyone I was Teufel’s son even now, and I do believe that. I’m not sure I trust you, but I trust you not to hurt me. So, I might be putting you in more danger with this, but I feel like I owe you and I think you’d rather know._

_See you in three years,_

_Gilgamesh Wulfenbach_


End file.
